Thiosemicarbazone derivatives of transition metals as multi-target drugs: A review

Abstract

The mutations of bacteria and viruses along with the resistance of various targets to the existing drugs have emerged as great challenges in the medical field. This imposes the need for novel drugs and medicines to resolve such threats. Metal complexes with thiosemicarbazone (TSC) ligands and their derivatives have been reported to show good medicinal values and appear to be beneficial in terms of producing less toxic and more effective drugs. Literature survey shows that the metals have selectivity for the target cells and their coordination influences the binding of the ligand with proteins and enzymes. The present article gives an insight into the importance of coordination of TSCs with transition and inner transition metals. It also correlates the variation in the biological activities with the nature of metal bound to the TSC moiety and the presence of substituents attached to the parent TSC. Various explored derivatives of biologically active TSC – metal complexes have been reviewed. This paper has reviwed the enhancement in the biological activity of different classes of metal- TSC derivative complexes compared to their precursors. The authors have tried to correlate the synergic effect exhibited by metal TSC complexes and explored their future use as combination drugs.

Keywords

• TSCs
• Schiff bases
• Metal–ligand complexes
• Ribonucleotide reductase
• Enzyme inhibition
• Biological activity